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Editorial: State of the Union speech is mere political theater

Vice President Joe Biden and House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio listen as President Barack Obama gives his State of the Union address Tuesday night.

Anyone who watched or listened to President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address Tuesday expecting to hear some good news, or least some inspiring news, about the state of our union was sorely disappointed.

The only conclusion that could be drawn from Obama’s address was that nothing is going to change in Washington, D.C. The president and the split Congress — Republicans in control of the House and Democrats in control of the Senate — will continue to excoriate each other throughout the year, an election year, without coming to grips with the problems plaguing the country.

Obama’s vow, no doubt born of frustration, to use executive action “whenever and wherever” necessary to narrow economic disparities will do little to further the cause of reasonable debate and compromise. But the president’s power of executive action has its limits. Obama cannot put millions of people back to work or ease their fears about affordable health care with the stroke of a pen.

Republicans in Congress, also frustrated due to their inability to pass legislation that will get through the Senate or be signed by the president, are sticking to their guns in an election year.

Columnist George Will recently wrote that the Constitution’s requirement that the president “shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the state of the union” has become a partisan exercise in political exhibitionism, whichever party’s president is delivering the address. “There’s not a dime’s worth of difference between the ways the parties try to milk partisan advantage from this made-for-television political pep rally,” Will wrote.

Anyone who watched Tuesday night would have to agree Will aptly described what now passes for a State of the Union address.

During his pep rally, Obama proposed little in the way of new legislation initiatives, with the exception of expanding the income tax credit for workers without children, which actually has some bipartisan support now.

In their turn, following the address, Republicans stuck to their familiar talking points.

All that means little will be done this year to address the state of the nation’s economy, make needed improvements to the Affordable Care Act or address other significant issues.

The outlook for 2015 may be different, following the mid-term elections later this year, and it may not. But it doesn’t look like the federal government in 2014 is going to be any more productive than it was in 2013.